A Donkey in the Meadow Read online

  Knocker, Squeaker and Peter were the gulls. The first two were the owners of the roof, the latter a friendly, intelligent gull who arrived when the others were absent. Knocker and Squeaker fiercely defended their territory, and Peter would wait far off in a field until he saw the roof was clear; then sweep majestically towards us. I had a special fondness for Peter and he would sometimes go for walks with me. He would fly and swoop over my head, alight on a boulder a few yards ahead of me, then surge into the sky again when I reached him. Knocker and Squeaker were more opportunist. They would parade the apex of the roof day after day, and in the winter would squat side by side on the chimney, content with its warmth. When they were hungry, if we had failed to attend to their needs, Squeaker would squeak and Knocker would bang on the roof with his beak. Many a time he has deceived us into thinking there was someone at the door, so insistent, so loud has been his knock. These three also had to be looked after. They were not, however, going to be pampered. They did not like shop bread but they would have to put up with it.

  All the instructions for the student and his wife were neatly typed. We had bought our tickets to Paddington. We had decided to stay at the Savoy, the first time together there since Jeannie had written Meet Me At The Savoy. We both had a pleasant sense of anticipation of the gay time ahead. It was Friday and we were going to leave by the Sunday night train. Everything, in fact, about the holiday was organised, when the Lamorna postmaster strode down the lane with a telegram. The message said simply:

  ‘Got donkey.

  Teague.’

  3

  I looked at the telegram in dismay.

  ‘Heavens, Jeannie,’ I said, ‘now what do we do?’

  Mr Teague, a Dickensian toby jug of a man, kept the Plume of Feathers at Scorrier near Redruth. He was also a cattle dealer, a horse dealer, a dealer in any kind of animal. We had had a drink with him a couple of weeks previously.

  ‘I never said definitely I wanted one,’ she murmured. ‘I only talked to him about it. I never thought he had taken me seriously.’

  I glanced at her suspiciously.

  ‘You promise you didn’t make some secret plan with him? . . . arrange for him to produce a donkey just as you arranged with your mother to give us Monty? . . . presenting me with a fait accompli?’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘You’ve always been so dotty about donkeys that I could believe anything.’

  Her addiction to donkeys began when she first learnt to toddle. Her family were living in Scotland, and they used to take their holidays at Troon; here on the sands Jeannie was given her first donkey ride. Her mother looked back on the event as a mixed blessing; for the ride was such a success that every morning when Jeannie woke up her first words were: ‘I want a donkey ride.’ She would have first one ride, then another, and when her mother, aiming at discipline, refused to allow a third, Jeannie would howl. Her mother, in a desperate need to silence her, would offer a compromise, a visit after the morning play on the sands to where the donkeys were tethered. Jeannie used to arrive at the spot, look up at them high above her, then put out a tiny hand to stroke their soft noses.

  Her next encounter with donkeys was when her family began taking their holidays in the Isles of Scilly. The islands in those days had the remoteness associated with islands. There was no mass invasion of holidaymakers. There were no telephone kiosks or cars, and electricity was limited to those who made their own. It was a magical place to visit, sailing, fishing, lying in the sun on deserted beaches, somewhere in which time seemed to be poised in space. The war was close, but Jeannie and her friends used to play there, deaf to the noise of the dictators, gloriously believing there was no end to any day, bronzed youth swimming in still blue water, shouting to the heavens their relish of living.

  She used to stay in those days in the Atlantic Hotel on St Mary’s overlooking the harbour. And when she was there in the spring she used to lean out of her bedroom window in the early morning and watch entranced the sight of the donkeys and their little green carts bringing the daffodil boxes to the quay. Then she dressed and went down to the breakfast tables and took lumps of sugar from the bowls. Many a donkey was pleased to see her as it waited for its cart to be unloaded.

  And later in the day she used to make a regular sortie to a field where a favourite donkey was put out to graze. First there was one donkey, then another and another. She had the childish delight in fancying that the donkeys had gossiped as they stood by the quay, spreading the news that a girl visited a certain field with a pocketful of sugar. Then one day there were more than twenty donkeys in the field, and it was not fun any more. They barged their noses into her pockets, pushed and shoved her, until she became frightened and began to run away from them. Her father, who was watching her, said it was a very funny sight . . . the Florence Nightingale of the donkeys racing across the grass and twenty sugar-mad donkeys close behind her.

  I also had been chased by a donkey.

  My earliest memory, so distant that I sometimes wonder whether it may be my imagination at work, is lying in a steep grass field staring up at the grey underbelly of a donkey. The field itself, and this I remember clearly, fell from the road to the seashore at the river end of Porth beach near my childhood home at Newquay. I was very small, and in my haste and terror as I ran from the donkey I had tripped, tumbling over into the grass, desperately aware that my future lay at the mercy of the beast that was soon upon me.

  I am able to believe in the reality of my story so far, but there is also an event in my memory so horrifying that it is strange that no one in my family can vouch for it. My mother when she was alive, and when I asked her about it, laughed at my foolishness, and surely she would have remembered so violent an incident to her youngest son.

  The donkey, so my memory tells me, kicked me in the teeth as I lay helpless beneath him.

  This memory, or childish nightmare as it must have been, was vividly present during my conversation with Jeannie. Donkeys, as cats had once been, were to me unfriendly creatures; but whereas my original distaste for cats was merely because I thought them vulgar, detached and selfish, I was, as far as donkeys were concerned, a little scared.

  They were bony and heavy, and dull-witted. I did not see how one could trust a donkey. A cat at least was not dangerous. It might scratch when frightened, or might even lacerate you if enraged, and you happened to be in the way. That was all. A donkey, on the other hand, was an unruly creature. It might kick without reason. Or bite. It was uncouth. I could not foresee how a donkey could ever enter the stream of our life except to excite our pity. There it would stand forlornly in a meadow, nothing to do, reproachfully demanding our attention which it would be too stupid to appreciate.

  Jeannie, of course, had long ago forgiven her sugarmad donkeys, and I guessed she only needed a little encouragement from me for her to answer the telegram by setting out forthwith to have a look at the donkey. I, on the other hand, remained on guard.

  ‘The first thing I’m going to do,’ I told her, ‘is to have a word with Jack Baker.’

  Jack Baker was a landscape gardener, and at this time was designing a new part of our garden. He was a practical man, an expert horticulturalist, a mechanic, a tree feller and, what interested me particularly, he had had experience with donkeys.

  ‘Tell me, Jack,’ I said when I found him, ‘what do you think about keeping a donkey as a pet?’

  Jack had a merry eye but a lugubrious nature. He wanted to enjoy life but the fates had checked him so many times that he was inclined always to outline the tedious side of a problem at the expense of the happier side. He was in his fifties, tall and broad-shouldered, an individualist who, during the war, preferred to remain a sergeant in the Guards rather than accept the commission he was offered. He was one of those rare people one would instinctively want to be with in a jam. He would, I felt sure, be calm while the threat – whatever it was – received his attention. I anxiously awaited his donkey views.

  He took
the pipe from his mouth, knocked the ash from the bowl on a rock, then pronounced:

  ‘You’ll have a packet of trouble.’

  I was, of course, prepared for a douche of cold water. He was only being true to my knowledge of him, a harbinger of bad news before good; and yet his attitude, because it coincided with my own, was pleasing to listen to.

  ‘How do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, the first thing you’ll find out, for instance,’ he said solemnly, ‘is that it will eat up the garden.’

  Even to my ears this remark sounded biased. What about a horse or a cow? Wouldn’t they eat up the garden if they were given a chance?

  Jack was leaning on his shovel, amused, delighting in his mission to discomfort me.

  ‘Ah,’ he said knowingly. ‘A horse or a cow can be kept in a field, and it’s only bad luck if it gets out. But a donkey! You can’t keep a donkey loose in a field. It’ll get out. It’ll jump a fence or a wall, and go roaming all over the district. And it’ll be eating up other people’s gardens besides yours.’

  ‘What do people do about donkeys then?’

  He grinned at me.

  ‘Best thing to do is to tether it. You get a swivel anchor from the blacksmith, fix it firmly in the ground, and the donkey goes round and round eating the grass. Then twice a day you move it.’

  ‘Twice a day?’

  ‘Oh yes, otherwise as soon as it has eaten the grass it will start braying.’

  ‘It’s a bit of a job digging up the anchor and then fixing it again, isn’t it?’

  ‘Certainly. But that’s what people do.’

  I could not see myself doing it.

  ‘There’s another point,’ Jack went on, and he was now talking as if he believed he had got me on the run, ‘and that’s water. A donkey drinks a lot, and you’ll have to keep a bucket always full beside it. If a donkey is thirsty even for a minute the braying will start up.’

  ‘How loud is the braying?’

  ‘They’ll hear it in the next parish.’

  ‘But surely,’ I said, ‘you’re exaggerating. You’re making out that a donkey is only fit for a zoo. After all, lots of people do keep donkeys.’

  ‘Not for long. They’re excited when they get them at first but soon tire of them when they find out the trouble they cause.’

  I found at this moment, contrary to reason, that Jack’s attitude was engaging my sympathy for donkeys. His arguments against them seemed, even to me, to be overloaded.

  ‘Now tell me honestly,’ I said, ‘how friendly can a donkey be?’

  He sat down on a rock, put his palms on his knees, laughingly looked at me with his head on one side, and replied:

  ‘How friendly? You ask me how friendly? . . . all I can say is I would never dare keep a donkey myself!’

  This should have been enough to make up my mind. Armed with Jack’s arguments I could have gone to Jeannie and explained to her that a donkey at Minack was quite impracticable. He had confirmed my suspicions. A donkey would only be a nuisance.

  But there were other factors involved which I felt would be fair to consider. Jack himself, for instance. He knew us both well enough to realise that in any case Jeannie would have her donkey if she really wished, and, therefore, he could without qualms take humorous pleasure in trying to scare me. He had had his joke but, contrarily, he had awakened my interest. My talk with him had the effect of an appetiser; and I was beginning to be intrigued as to where the ownership of a donkey might lead me.

  I had also to admit that Minack would provide a wonderful setting for a donkey. It could roam along the grey boulders of the moorland, wander down the steep slopes of the cliff to the sea’s edge, and for most of the year when the daffodils were not growing, it could be loose in the bulb fields. There was land enough, therefore, for it not to have any reason to escape; and I also saw a practical advantage. A donkey would help to keep the grass down.

  Nor could I forget that in the past I had always objected to the arrival of a new pet, and then soon agreed that my objections had been wrong. I had not wanted Monty or Lama or the drake or the fox cub which Jeannie looked after when it was brought to her with an injured foot. I suffered the contradictory emotions of enjoying responsibility once it had been imposed upon me, but of fearing any addition to those I already held. An animal was a responsibility. I had been brought up to believe that once an animal is accepted into a household it must be treated as a member of it, and not as a piece of furniture. And I remember my father telling me, when he gave me my first puppy, that it was my job to make the puppy happy, and not the other way round.

  I was, therefore, in two minds what to do; and in the end I decided to surprise Jeannie. I would act in a holiday spirit. When she set out to persuade me to go and have a look at the donkey, I would immediately agree. What harm could there be in just having a look?

  So an hour later we were in the Land Rover, and I was innocently driving towards Mr Teague. We were about to arrive when Jeannie suddenly said, ‘If we like it, we will have the donkey, won’t we?’

  ‘No,’ I said firmly, ‘certainly not.’

  And I knew I was lying.

  4

  We reached the Plume of Feathers soon after opening time, and Mr Teague greeted us with a glint in his eye. He saw a sale in the offing.

  ‘Come in,’ he said jovially from behind the bar, ‘have a drink. What’ll you have, Mrs Tangye?’

  Mr Teague, or Roy as he now insisted on us calling him, was in the fortunate position of being able to do his bargaining on his own licensed premises. Sales could be conducted in convivial circumstances, and though a purchaser might succeed in reducing a price or a seller in increasing it, the cost of the evening had to be considered. I was aware of this. I had therefore decided, in the event of us wishing to buy the donkey, to complete the deal with the minimum of argument. I might lose a pound or two on the price, but this was a sensible sacrifice if it meant we could speedily return to Minack.

  ‘We’ve just looked in to see the donkey,’ I said casually, ‘it was very nice of you to send the telegram.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a nice little donkey and thought I’d let you have the first chance.’

  He had got us our drinks and was now leaning with elbows on the bar, hands interlocked. I could see he was about to turn his charm on Jeannie. She was a vulnerable target.

  ‘Lovely-tempered little donkey,’ he said, smiling at her, ‘good as gold. Comes from Ireland, from Connemara or somewhere like that. They ship them over by the dozen these days.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘They go for pet food mostly.’

  ‘How cruel,’ said Jeannie.

  He was now fiddling with an empty ashtray on the counter.

  ‘The only trouble is she is not in very good condition. Nothing serious. Nothing that Dr Green can’t soon put right.’

  ‘Dr Green?’ I asked, puzzled.

  ‘Grass.’

  ‘Oh, of course.’

  He turned again to Jeannie. His eyes were twinkling.

  ‘And there’s another thing. Something, I bet, you never bargained for when you came along here. She’s in foal. Two donkeys for one. What about that?’

  I took a gulp at my drink.

  ‘Good heavens!’ I said.

  ‘Now, now, now,’ he answered, looking at me and sensing a momentary setback, ‘as soon as she’s had the foal I’ll buy it off you. Nothing could be fairer than that, could it?’

  He turned again to Jeannie.

  ‘Have you ever seen a little donkey foal? Lovely little things they are. Just like a toy. You can pick it up in your arms. I’ve seen a child do that, honestly I have.’

  I watched Jeannie melting. The practical side, the prospect of two donkeys charging about Minack, did not concern her at all. All that she could imagine was the picture card idyll of a donkey and its foal. The deal was advancing in his favour. Somewhere in a field behind the pub was a donkey which was on the brink of being o
urs.

  And then Mr Teague played his ace.

  ‘Sad thing about this donkey,’ he said, fumbling again with the ashtray, ‘very sad thing . . . by the way, Penny’s her name. Pretty name Penny, isn’t it?’

  ‘You were saying.’

  ‘Yes, I was going to tell you that if you don’t like the look of her, I’ve got a buyer. Made a good offer he has too, but it’s a sad story.’

  ‘Why so sad?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t like to see it happen. You see the idea of this buyer is to wait for the foal to be born, then put it in a circus. A donkey foal in a circus would be a big draw, especially on the holiday circuit. Can’t you see the children flocking round it?’

  I could see he was genuinely concerned.

  ‘What happens to the mother?’

  He glanced at me, appreciating that I was on the wavelength.

  ‘That’s the point. That’s what I’m worried about. That’s why I want to find her a good home, and thought of you two.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The idea of this buyer friend of mine is to send Penny to the knacker’s yard as soon as the youngster can get along without her.’

  ‘But that’s awful.’ I could not help myself from saying what I knew was in Jeannie’s mind.

  ‘And what’s more,’ went on Roy Teague, ‘when the season is over and they’ve got their money’s worth out of the youngster, it’ll be too big to keep.’ He paused. ‘They’ll send it to the knacker’s yard as well.’

  The emotion he expected erupted.

  ‘I must go and see her at once.’ Jeannie was picking up the gloves she had dropped on a stool. She looked pained. She was at that moment the ideal example of a salesman’s victim. She was hooked, and so was I. However bad was the donkey’s condition, we must buy her. It was our duty. We had been given the chance of saving her, and of giving a home to her foal. Here was an opportunity which reached far beyond our original inclinations. We would not only be giving a donkey a home, but also acquiring a donkey which would otherwise be doomed . . . first by sadness because of being parted too soon from her foal, then by the journey which ended in the knacker’s yard. I was a donkey buyer with a mission. I had better begin negotiations.